The former Tottenham star feels "honoured" to be pulling on the Merengue shirt.

Modric said: "There are so many great players that have played for Real Madrid ... Looking back, there were Di Stefano, Puskas. More recently Raul and Zidane, one of our coaches. Cristiano, who is the past, present and future of this team. They are the players I admire the most, but my hero as a child was Zvonimir Boban. He played more than 10 years at Milan and is one of the best players in Croatian history.

About what it means to play for Real Madrid and the teammate in the squad that he most admires, he said: "It is a great honour. This is a great club and we have a squad full of great players, stars and I admire them all. I do not want to mention names. We have so many good players in the team..."